


Looking Forward

by eveshka



Series: Tales of the Dawn King [17]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Spoilers, you know the drill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 23:51:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10864698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eveshka/pseuds/eveshka
Summary: He does because he has to.





	Looking Forward

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: T  
> Warnings: None  
> Characters: Ignis Scientia, Gladio Amicitia, Prompto Argentum  
> Time Period: Immediate aftermath of the Leviathan Disaster  
> Location: Altissia
> 
> For ljet on Tumblr's prompt.

Awareness did not return to Ignis Scientia kindly. It did not slip in like a gentle lover with a gradual progression through soft sounds, gentle light, and the faint scent of morning in the air. No, awareness slammed into Ignis with pain so intense it had turned into sound by way of an open mouth and air forced out of lungs, became movement through the thrashing of limbs as the base inner brain function tried to do anything to get away from whatever it was that was hurting.

Hands clawed, upper brain function offset by adrenaline, fingers moving towards where it hurt and his left hand made contact first, nails tearing into whatever was attached to his face, ripping skin away with animalistic ferocity. Something interfered; another action, a flicker of power and a blade in his hand. It was thrown without regard, and hand again freed, it returned to clawing, scraping, tearing.

 _It hurt, why didn’t it stop hurting, wasn’t it enough that he was roaring and flailing and why wasn’t this coming off of his face-_ a different pain slammed into the back of his head washing over the pain in his face and awareness fled.

   
The second time that awareness came to Ignis Scientia, it was kinder. It came by way of the scent of astringent, something soft beneath him, and quiet words in familiar voices nearby. There was none of the chaos and pain of before, just a strange distanced peace that a part of him didn’t understand.

Another part did and after a few heartbeats, it managed to creep across the idea that he’d been drugged. His thoughts were sluggish, but if he focused on one single thing, he found he could wrap his tongue around a word and force enough air out of his lips to whisper it hoarsely. “Noct?”

The voices nearby stopped, and a hand touched his. Ignis struggled to open his eyes and couldn’t understand why he couldn’t. The thought just slipped away from him even as he worked it into something resembling coherence. But the touch was real enough, warm fingers against his own, a soft voice that didn’t sound quite right. “Just rest, Ignis. We’re all here.” Rest. That thought slid around him, through him, as sweet and enticing as a siren’s call and he followed it willingly into quiet darkness.

   
The third time Ignis Scientia became aware of anything, it was that there was something on his face, and someone beside him. He was less befuddled, aware now that there was a strange tightness on his face, something across his eyes. He moved, one arm raising and bending to bring fingers to lightly skim across fabric? Wait, his gloves…? Ignis’ hands met in front of him, left feeling right, neither hand gloved. He felt bandages along his fingers instead, and tilted his head against the pillow, attempting to remember what had happened to his hands.

“Hey. You awake in there?” Gladio’s voice threaded through the confusion and Ignis gave a quiet start. “If you’re looking for your gloves, don’t know where they went. You didn’t have them when we found you, and your hands were pretty messed up.”

Ignis considered this, turning the knowledge over in his mind and not coming up with a reason as to why he’d be without his gloves unless they’d been damaged in the chaos. Chaos? What chaos? Why did he think there was chaos? He’d have frowned if the bandages weren’t preventing that, and began counting on his fingers. No, he was missing something. Something important. What was it he was missing? “Gladio? What…” Noctis. Where was Noctis? “Noctis?”

“He’s down the hall. He’s okay. You’re the one we’re worried about. You remember anything that happened after we split up?”

Try as he might, the last thing that Ignis clearly recalled was eating dinner at Maagho after Noctis met with First Secretary Claustra. “We… ate… dinner. At Maagho. I had the Lasagna.” Memory flickered, something danced just out of mental reach. “The rest of it... Possibly trauma. Or a head injury. I recall something…” Something? Someone? Hit the back of his head?

Ignis moved to reach up to the back of his head, but his hand was intercepted by a larger, rougher hand. “It’s okay. They said you might not remember what happened, that the brain does something to memory to protect itself. Gave me a pamphlet to read about it. You still remember what happened, it’s just repressed.” Gladio gently moved Ignis’ hand to rest on his chest as he spoke, and then patted it gently as if to tell the hand to stay put.

The drugs must have been wearing thin, for the longer Gladio spoke, the more agitated and aware of his surroundings Ignis grew. “Gladiolus, what don’t I remember? Why am I here, my hands and face bandaged? What happened to me? What happened to my eyes?” His words were measured, a thin veneer of calm struggling to contain panic that Ignis didn’t want to indulge.

“Not gonna lie Iggy, you’re hurt. But you’re alive and that’s the important thing. We just take it one day at a time.”

Ignis raised his hand with the intent of telling Gladio precisely what he thought of the King’s Shield giving him that particular pep talk when a new voice interrupted. “Heyas, Iggster!”

Sometimes Ignis thought Prompto’s nicknames were over the top, but at that moment, he found it comforting to know that Prompto was alive, and well enough to be dropping nicknames. Then again, “I believe the last time you called me that was when you threw an Elixir at me in Costlemark. Is it that bad?”

There was an awkward silence and then Prompto spoke, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. “Whatever happened to you took six hi-potions and a phoenix down to keep you alive to get you here, Ignis. No one had an Elixir to throw.”

“Yeah, and if you don't want to remember, that's okay by me,” Gladio interjected.

“Right!” There was a pause, and Ignis’ memory supplied an impression of Prompto looking at Gladio with an anxious and unspoken question, forced cheer in his voice not reflected in those eyes. “Just you rest there and focus on getting better!”

“The two of you are terrible actors,” Ignis pronounced, though as his head was clearing, the pain was returning. He grunted, then hoped they hadn't noticed. The hand at his shoulder, lighter and smaller than Gladio's, told him they had.

“Hang on, Ignis. Gladio's gone to find someone to help. Painkillers wearing off, huh? Sorry, dude.”

“Prompto.” Ignis began, ignoring the slow arrival of pain at the back off his head. “Noctis. Tell me what happened to Noctis.” He reached up and gripped the hand at his shoulder, clinging to the touch of a companion he could not see. The pain at his temple was starting again, and he felt awash in a sea of pain, with only Prompto’s hand as his anchor. “Where is he?”

“He- he’s- he’s just down the hall, sleeping. You know, how he slept after Titan? And Ramuh? Okay, Ramuh wasn't so bad, but yeah, he's just sleeping. He sort of wakes up enough to eat or allow a nurse to take him to the bathroom, but then he’s out again. He's getting top care. You both are.” There was something in Prompto's voice, but the pain was keeping Ignis from figuring it out.

There were voices, Gladio and a woman, and then a soft feminine voice at his ear. “Here we go, a small stick, something for the pain…”

It was unfair that Ignis couldn’t get his mouth open in time to beg off the painkiller, he’d rarely ever indulged in the past, preferring to work through any headache or pain he’d experienced. As such, he had no tolerance for them, and even the smallest dose left him unable to think. His words started to jumble in his head almost immediately, and his hand flailed out, caught in rough gloved hands that clasped it tightly. “I’ve got you, just rest. Let your body heal.” Prompto’s words were lost in the haze and Ignis slipped off into oblivion once more.

   
Hours later, (or was it days? He couldn’t be sure.) Ignis was seated in the bed, digesting the words that the doctor had left with him. Eye injury. Physical irreversible trauma to the left, and traumatic cataract and subsequent glaucoma to the right. There were a host of medications; some to reduce the swelling and try to reverse the pressure on his optic nerve, thereby restoring some vision. But without access to the fully functioning hospitals of Insomnia… Ignis had understood what the doctor wasn’t saying. He was blind, and very likely to stay that way.

They’d unwrapped his eyes, and his field of vision was narrow, and restricted to blurry moving shapes of vague color. It turned his stomach and he had vomited immediately. Humiliated beyond understanding, Ignis did the only thing he knew how to do: he detached, put it away behind his heart, focused on the knowledge that Noctis was alive, and started counting his heartbeat anew. The old count was done, that life couldn’t be taken back. He would go over it later, he told himself, and put it firmly out of mind.

He’d decided then and there that when asked, he’d tell the others that he was healing and that his eyesight was a matter of time. (Until it was clear that it wasn’t, and by then, hopefully they’d accept the new reality.) He’d learn the language of the blind, and he’d learn how to maneuver and fight in his new darkened world. He was Ignis Scientia, Advisor to the King, and he would remain.

So he requested a cane, protective sunglasses, and was seated in the room where Noctis was, running his fingers along a lesson for beginner’s Braille when his King awoke. Moving forwards because they both had to.


End file.
